A Glass Darkly
by Temora
Summary: Wesley's unearthed a magical object that allows him to observe people without their knowledge. To judge the measure of their life. For some reason, he just can't stop watching Faith's. Season 5, COMPLETE, violence, language


DISCLAIMER: These characters are the sole property of Mutant Enemy and Fox. No infringement of copyright is intended and no profit is made. 

SPOILERS: Nah. This is just generic ANGEL early season five. 

DISTRIBUTION: Sure, wherever you like. Just please let me know where it's going. 

FEEDBACK: Yes, please!  lokibard@yahoo.com.au

SUMMARY: _he sees you when you're sleeping / he knows when you're awake…_  

**a glass darkly**

When Wesley asked after inspecting the magically sealed fortieth-lowest basement space, he hadn't really expected to be given full access to it. He never was; the Head Of Department title he carried around was as insubstantial as their resident blonde vampire. Excuses were made, diversions offered, something "more pressing" always arrived - Wesley was fully aware of this. His was a precarious position. There but not _really_ there, in charge but not _really_ in charge. Wesley had always been the one with answers. It seemed, however, there were far fewer questions of late. Instead, there were secrets. 

It was with mild surprise, then, that he found not only had his latest request been met – and promptly – but that Eve herself had turned up for the show-and-tell duties.

"Why you, in particular?" he asked, following her down a dim corridor. She seemed to carry her own light source within her; the dark didn't settle on her the way it did upon Wesley. 

"You got lucky, Book-guy," she replied lightly. "We knew you'd covet the unknown sooner or later. Wanted to be along for the ride, is all. Now, hush up and follow the grungy brick road, okay?"

Wesley reflected upon this. There was no reason for the hallway they were traversing to be dim – or, indeed, dusty. There was no need for the sporadic, guttering torches set at hundred-foot intervals along its flagstone walls. There was no need for the faint sound of distant shrieking to be audible. It still occasionally surprised him that a state-of-the-art facility like Wolfram and Hart clung to the sentiment and accoutrements of "evil" the way they did, however hidden. In Wesley's world, it registered as slightly … tacky. 

His assistant-of-the-day, Shana, scuttled at his heels. As much as Wesley allowed himself to be irritated by such things, Shana irritated him. She had a way about her – a frumpy, long-suffering, slightly martyrish air that made him want to roll his eyes. Or, in his darker moments, smack the syrupy smile from her lips. 

Eve stopped in front of a non-descript stone panel in the wall. It stood out from its surroundings only by virtue of a worn, palm-round section at waist height. She reached out, hand hovering above the spot. "Ever feel that little prickle on the back of your neck, Wes?"

"Of course," Wesley replied shortly. "Everyone has."

"And the common way to phrase it in those buck-and-a-half paperbacks is 'the feeling of being watched', correct?"

"Yes."

"Yes. And perhaps that's because they are."

Smoothly, she drew her fingers across the worn panel of stone. It shimmered once, then melted, slid, coalesced into a double set of wooden doors. They were heavy and ancient-looking, inscribed with a carving of a ram's head. The horns jutted out starkly, scarred. Ominous. 

Wesley registered this silently. If his lack of reaction disappointed Eve, she didn't show it, merely swung the doors open with an ostentatious gesture. They creaked heavily on their rusted hinges – yet another, Wesley thought, unnecessary trapping. 

"I get it," he said flatly, stepping into the darkness that lay beyond. "You're evil."

Eve snickered, and pulled the doors closed behind her. 

Wesley stood, blinking, in an area which his senses told him was large, perhaps even cavernous. The air felt dry, hot. A decaying scent wafted from the floor beneath him. 

"Scared, Wes?" came Eve's voice. There was a hollow puff of breath into his left ear, and a finger trailed down his spine. The old Wesley would perhaps have scuttled forward, perhaps even have shrieked. The new Wesley merely continued to breathe. 

"Fine," Eve sighed. "Spoil my fun. It's not like a gal gets to do this every day." She clapped her hands sharply. "Lights on!"

Wesley blinked. Before him, a rounded bank of down-lights fluttered softly into being, one after another. They illuminated something which made Shana gasp, Eve smile, and Wesley tilt his head in curiousity. Gone was the stone, gone the sputtering torches, the cobwebs – even the faint sound of screaming had died away. The room they were in was white, spotless, perfectly circular. The wall was lined with steel brackets spaced several feet apart. In each bracket sat a spherical glowing object, and before each object stood a cloaked figure, hooded face bent toward it. 

Wesley immediately recognised the hand-woven dark green robes as those belonging to a race of no-mouthed Gij shamans from Asia Minor. To the best of his recollection, they communicated telepathically, were not dangerous to humans, and for those who could reach or be reached by them mentally, possessed no little skill in reading the future. A hooded figure turned towards him, and he gazed impassively into an iron-grey, ancient face, huge eyes regarding him unblinking, unfocused, uncaring, unimpressed. The hood swung slowly back to face the sphere, and Wesley turned to Eve. 

"What sort of information are they collecting?" he asked, and saw her eyebrows raise in vague surprise.  

"What makes you think they're not just controlling the heat supply? Or, y'know, making magic bagels or something?"

Wesley repeated his earlier deductions aloud, and from the corner of his eye, saw the mildly flustered Shana taking notes. 

"Bravo, Book-guy," Eve said. "Your reputation is well-earned, I see. These guys, quite simply, are our Watching division."

Wesley raised an eyebrow. "They … watch."

"Yes. A little subject I'm sure you know a lot about."

"Not collate information?"

"Eh, potato, potahto." 

"On people?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"Everybody. Even you. Remember I was talking about the back-of-the-neck jibblies?" Eve waved her hand, taking in the entire room. "Meet the guys who give 'em to you."

As if on cue, the hairs on the back of Wesley's neck stood on end. With some effort, he suppressed a shudder. When he looked into the nearest glowing globe, he was only mildly surprised to see his own face contained within it, somewhat watery and stretched. The orb was shot through with a creamy yellow colour, which throbbed and beat steadily, growing brighter by the second. As he watched, his own image faded away and was replaced by that of a dark-skinned gentleman in his golden years. The colour changed too, to a mottled green. 

Wesley turned to Eve. "These look like the Almiras orbs. The ones presumed lost in the eleventh century."

Eve smiled. "Bingo. Almiras was-"

"Reportedly an angel," Wesley cut in smoothly. "A master of invisibility. It was said that, like Hera, he took his pleasure in watching lesser beings. He could never become one, but he could know them better they knew themselves."

Eve merely nodded.

"He created the orbs so that he might always have a way in which to pass his eye upon the people, to know their worth." Here Wesley paused, and shot Eve a dark look. "I don't imagine that anything Wolfram and Hart is using them for is what Almiras originally intended."

"Hey." Eve held up her hands defensively. "They were here long before I got this job, and they'll be here long after." She smiled. "Just the tour guide, Wes."

He eyed her flatly. "I'm not foolish enough to believe that." Eve made no reply other than an enigmatic smile. "And the Gij? The orbs outdate them by thousands of years."

"Just the couriers," Eve said, waving a dismissive hand. "The orbs work on their own. You can even direct them to a specific person if you want. A monkey could do it." She paused. "Well, a monkey who could see the future. And, like, write it down and stuff."

Wesley gently pushed a silent shaman aside and ran his fingers reverently across the surface of an orb. Deep within it, the lined face of an elderly African woman smiled back at him. 

"For what do they watch?" Wesley asked, as the image flickered and was replaced with that of a baby, barely out of its first month.

Eve shrugged. "Potential, mostly." She indicated a glowing orb that currently framed a young man propped on a bar stool. "Hold that there," she instructed the shaman. The image froze. "Like this one. Mike Warsaw. Gainesville, Florida. Law student extraordinaire."

To Wesley's eyes, Mike Warsaw seemed innocuous enough – his short-sleeved tan shirt was the very model of propriety, his hair was neither too long nor too short, his impeccable leather wallet lay before him on the bar, and he was sipping a Budweiser with a cheerful grin on his almost-handsome face. The flicker of light shooting across the surface of the globe, however, was a sickening, pulsing red. 

Wesley turned to Eve, who was observing Mike Warsaw with what looked like mild amusement. "He's just a standard-issue human, before you ask," Eve said, grinning. "But in case you aren't on the same page yet, the red stands for eeeeeevil." 

Wesley tipped his head back a little and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I presumed as much. A little passé, wouldn't you say?"

Eve's lips twitched. "Well, yeah. But, y'know, helps us sort out the chattel from the cattle. 'He knows when you've been bad or good', or what-have-you."

Wesley had a sudden disturbing vision of a stout, red-clad, bearded St. Nick leaning feverishly over a globe like the ones before him, a film strip of children's faces flickering past at light speed. "Good! Bad! Good! Awful! Troll!" the man was bellowing, and his features began to swim, knot and mesh together in a sickly rotten whirlpool of tendons and torn flesh. 

Eve was looking at him quizzically, Wesley realised. He swallowed his unease. "Our Mr. Mike Warsaw," he inquired evenly. "What has he done to deserve the questionable attention of Wolfram and Hart?"

"Oh, it's not what he's done," Eve replied. "It's what he _will _do. In his second year of practicing criminal law, Mikey here is going to suppress some evidence that lets his rapist client walk. And the next time, the guy's gonna kill." She gestured to another globe. "Her." 

With quiet horror, Wesley watched a fair-skinned young girl laughing with an older man, perhaps her father. Her feet were propped on a veranda railing, and she glistened with a light sheen of sweat. The surface of her globe was a radiant, electric blue. 

"Yup, she's quite the little angel," Eve volunteered, forestalling his question. "Kids social worker – or she will be by then. If she were an ice-cream flavour, she'd be vanilla shot with cherry, baby." She paused, then went on cheerfully. "It's kinda nasty, actually. He makes her write a letter to her father before he skins her. And he keeps her earrings."

Wesley's voice was quiet. "When?" 

"In about three years." Eve glanced at the nearest shaman, cocked her head, and listened to something Wesley couldn't hear. "February nineteenth, 2007, to be exact. At, uh, two forty-eight in the morning." 

"Write it down," Wesley directed over his shoulder. Shana complied.

"Wesley, Wesley," Eve sing-songed, a knowing smile on her face. 

Wesley ignored her. "Mike Warsaw," he continued. "Gainesville, Florida. Law student. Shouldn't be too hard to find. Call Emil, have him send somebody. Tell him expenses plus ten thousand if he can make sure our friend Mr. Warsaw is never inclined to stray from the straighter side of the bench."

Shana scribbled furiously, nodding. 

Eve's smile had broadened. "Well, well. Quite the cowboy, aren't you? That's just one of the stories here. There are thousands more. Millions. Can't save 'em all, Wes."

He levelled a stony gaze at her. "The Mike Warsaws are found – and then what?"

Eve shrugged. "Keep tabs on 'em. Nothing special. Bring 'em in if they show real promise."

"In? To Wolfram and Hart?"

Eve grinned. "Where d'you think the junior execs come from? Fresh-plucked from the Ivy league?"

Wesley blinked. "I hadn't actually given it much thought. Perhaps that was an oversight on my part."

"Confidentially?" Eve said, leaning closer, "Yale's our best harvesting ground. Full of all those resentful over-achievers who didn't make Harvard."

"The shift is changing," Wesley said suddenly, raising himself to his full height. He pointed to the nearest shaman. "You," he instructed. "Increase your numbers to fifty.  I don't care where you get the rest from, but make it happen. You'll be on eight-hour shifts, twenty-four hours a day. Your targets remain the same, but from now on you're reporting only to me. I want files on everything you turn up, arranged in date order, worst cases first."

"That's pointless," Eve said, not bothering to disguise her amusement. "There'll be a thousand new cases every day. We only have one Files and Records, and she's broken right now."

"Have her fixed," Wesley muttered to Shana. He paused, his brow creasing. Then he added, "Narrow the range to Los Angeles and the surrounding area. We can't save everybody. We never could. I understand that." He strode for the doors, Shana scuttling faithfully behind him.

"Hold it!" Eve called, her hand raised. "They wanna know," she went on, "what your limit is." At Wesley's questioning look, she elaborated. "Just the murders? Cause they number in the hundreds every month by themselves. Or the rapes too? Child molesters, terrorists, or your garden variety demon attack? You see their problem when you say 'worst cases', right? It's all relative. And since these guys kinda get off on the pain-and-suffering thing, you're roping in a pretty big field, John Wayne."

Wesley's jaw tightened, a sick feeling in his throat. "You're asking me to play God." 

"I'm asking you to play _reasonable,_" Eve replied flatly. "You're talking about hundreds of cases, thousands of man-hours and more magic than you could shake a Hollywood Bowl full of Wiccan at. Every. Single. Day. I don't know what you were told when you got this gig, but even we don't have that kind of firepower, Wes. Not on more than a short-term basis."

There was a long silence, during which Wesley turned inward. "Murders," he said finally, painfully, the words stumbling from him unwillingly. "All of them. Mystical attacks and rape ... but only if the victims are children." He cleared his throat. 'You say these can be directed to individuals?"

Eve nodded. 

"Right, then." Wesley didn't look back as he crossed the threshold. "Shana, bring one of the orbs to my office, please."

+++

It became like a movie, of sorts, the best reality series Wesley had ever seen. In the beginning, he had merely watched the parade of faces pass, listened to voices speak in several language he understood and several he did not. He noted the auras, and had his greatest shock when the most sickly, blood-red colour he had witnessed came hand-in-hand with the sugar-sweet face of a blonde youth in an altar-boy robe. Strangeness abounded. Somewhere in North Dakota, a soulless vampire killed two of his own kind to protect a young girl whom he then set free. A woman in New Zealand lifted a two-tonne truck to set her husband free from underneath it. In Korea, a gentle businessman stabbed his four children to death before he became aware of what he had done. When he had, he laughed until they took him away. In Spain, a minor member of the royal family had been eaten and replaced by a Jhorim spirit, who was planning to slowly bring its own family into the fold. 

 It was two days before Wesley remembered that the orbs could be directed, and another one before he brought himself to speak the first name aloud. 

His father was solitary, buried in his library for days at a time. His mother sat in the garden, a pile of books beside her, a distant look on her face.  He watched Angel sit alone, darkly thumbing through equal parts employee files and pretentious Russian literature. Lorne's sex life was far more active, ambiguously-specied and disquieting than Wesley had ever thought possible. Fred worked hard, although her interests when alone revealed a entirely mercenary and slightly disturbing streak beneath her sweetness. Gunn immersed himself in cases, his glowing pride in each accomplishment sitting clearly upon his strong face. 

Wesley never once considered the moral implications of what he was doing. He never considered much of anything at all. One day, he spent four hours watching himself … watching himself/watching himself/watching himself/watching himself. If his beeper had not gone off, he would perhaps have been caught there for weeks. 

It was more than six days before Fred inquired after Wesley's whereabouts. Gunn had not seen him, nor needed to, Lorne was immersed in handling the latest Paris Hilton scandal, and Angel had been … Angel. 

Wesley was not in his outer office, so Fred headed for the study at its rear. A cup of tea and an apple Danish proceeded her face around the doorframe. Wesley, buried in a monstrous leather chair and bent slightly forward over a glowing sphere, didn't even look up. His clothes showed every moment of the several days they had been worn, his ever-present stubble was approaching goatee status, and even from her vantage point several feet away, Fred could see that his eyes were bloodshot. 

Her nose wrinkled slightly. "Wesley?" 

Wesley looked up. "Fred. Come in." He indicated a chair opposite his own. "Is everything all right? Are you well?"

"Better than some, apparently." Fred approached him, holding out the teacup carefully. "Here."

"Thank you." 

Fred settled into her chair, noticed Wesley eyeing the Danish and shook her head with a smile. "Sorry, this is mine. Want your own, you'll have to come out of your cave."

Wesley leant back, rubbing his eyes. "Ah. Yes. My apologies. I've been rather … distracted of late."

"Try invisible. We were supposed to be going over those Rhysil'lkos prophecies this afternoon, remember?"

"I hadn't. I'm sorry."

Fred tilted her head. "Don't apologise. Knox can handle the preliminaries, anyway. It's kinda fascinating, though. The translator, I mean? I never thought there'd be such a foolproof way to mix science and magic. Well, except for, y'know, portals, but that's mostly a semantics thing, so I suppose you could call it language. Anyways, it's all mystical, which would make Einstein giggle, you betcha.  But he was pretty open-minded, or so I've read. Some of his earlier stuff – the unfinished theorems? Funny. Whatcha working on?"

Wesley had followed the Fred train with no effort. It had taken some months initially, but her leaps from subject to subject now made an odd kind of sense. He opened his mouth and said the first thing that came into his mind. 

"Buffy's not in Europe."

Fred was silent for a second. "What?"

"She's in Ohio. At college." At Fred's quizzical look, he indicated the orb before him. "It's a relatively short story."

+ + +

It was the evening of the ninth day before Wesley had the idea. Once he did, it was good for several more minutes of thought before his expression changed. The change was not large; as had become his wont, it announced itself in a slight set of the jaw, a tiny narrowing of the eyes. To an unknowing observer, he would have resembled a man who had recalled a minor annoyance. Those closest to him, however, would have recognised the look he got when something captivated him completely. 

Wesley leant over the orb again, and spoke a single word. 

"Faith."

+++

There was light in the alley, but barely enough to outline more than two blurred shapes, clinging, writhing, coming together and then apart like cloth torn at the seams. A steel-capped boot stamped through an oily puddle, scattering tarry drops. It was mechanical. One, two, three, _pound_, the only sound a series of grunts, air driven from chests, expelled past bloody teeth through bloody lips. 

"Come on. Come _on, _motherfucker," a female voice growled, raspy and furious. 

Wesley leant closer. One half of the orb flickered with a pulsing, electric blue light – the other, a dull beige. 

The "motherfucker" came. Snarling, clawing, putting up the desperate – and doomed – fight that so many of his kind had done before him. Like them, his efforts were entirely pointless. 

Faith laughed as she was showered with dust. For a moment, she looked about her with wary suspicion, one hand drifting up to massage the back of her neck. Then she holstered her stake, brushed off her shirt, and headed into the night. 

The orb receded to a flickering blue tinge. 

And Wesley watched. 

+ + +

His favourite "episode", as it were, involved a phone conversation with Buffy in which Faith had come the closest to begging that he suspected she ever would.

"I thought we were past all that, B. Thought that shit was flung, y'know? … Listen, it's a great city. Alls I'm sayin' is that a visit wouldn't go astray sometime. Haven't turned up any little sisters here, and Robin ain't the best Watcher-type. He likes to play too much … So you're not going to LA, well, there's a whole other bunch of states you can hide from your Romeos in … That's what I said … Yeah, if that's the way you're playing it, then my ass is completely kissable too. 'Kay?"

She appeared to be in New Orleans. Fitting, Wesley thought, given the city's unearthly heritage. She also appeared to be living with a man Wesley had never seen – tall, dark, almost unbearably handsome. Their relationship was vitriolic. Wesley had yet to witness a conversation longer than five minutes that did not end in yelling, sex, or both. Wesley observed both with an equal lack of hesitation, and managed to become quite clinical about it. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Wesley became aware of the fact that he had begun to watch her to the exclusion of all else. The daily reports he commandeered from the Gij lay unread on his desk in manila-coloured piles. A translation that Angel had requested was sitting there too, the notepad beside it free of all but the most trivial of scratchings. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, exactly, he found so compelling about the girl, but the irony of watching the person he once considered himself to have failed in that area was sweet indeed. 

There was a Faith whom existed in daylight, free of alleyways, free of highway underpasses, bloody knives, bruises and scorn-filled one-liners. She shopped. She danced. She sneezed. She made love, laughed with cab drivers, dodged police with wary ease, languished under drooping trees in the park. She read sometimes, she dressed with more care than Wesley could believe, she once helped an old lady to take out her garbage, her eyes full of amused disbelief at her own plebeian Girl-Guide-esque citizenry. 

He watched as she sent her companion packing after a particularly nasty argument. He watched as her accommodations gradually lessened in stature, as her lengthy night-time prowling extended to the small hours of the morning, as her clothes went a little longer between laundering. He watched as she walked from restaurants without paying, and as she once paused momentarily at the sight of a fat wad of cash on the ground next to a man she had saved from a double-team vampire attack. He watched as she picked it up and her fist clenched before she handed back to him and stiffly waved away the hundred dollar bill he gratefully extended in her direction. 

And Wesley watched it all. 

On the twelfth day, he watched Faith pick up her motel-room telephone and dial a number. The fact that his own phone then began to ring escaped him until he registered the look of mild annoyance on her face. He crossed slowly to his desk, noting that his pulse had elevated, and picked up the receiver. 

"Faith."

"Jeez, Wes. Y'all got some sort of magic videophone setup I can't see, or are you just a good guesser?"

Wesley swallowed his smile. "A little of both, I suppose. How have you been?" From his desk, he could not see the orb clearly, and he was regretting that he had not picked up the headset unit when he had originally thought of it. He had to make do with her voice alone, and he found himself feeling curiously unstable about it. 

There was a short intake of breath before she replied. "Can't complain. Good weather. Dumb vamps. Nice nightlife. You?"

"I've been a little busy."

"Yeah? You working on anything about Slayers, by any chance?"

Wesley's knuckles tightened on the handset. "No," he said slowly. "Why?"

"No reason. Just found myself thinking about you a lot lately. Not in the Playboy channel way, before you get any ideas." She laughed. "Just been on my mind. Sometimes it feels like I'm gonna run into you any second, or something."

The first spasm of guilt fluttered into Wesley's being, and he edged as far toward the orb as he could. Within it, Faith was splayed comfortably on her bed, one booted foot propped atop the other. She was toying idly with the phone cord. 

"Do you mean in a prophetic way?" he asked. "Or just a feeling?"

"Hey, don't go getting mystical on me, my man," she replied. In the orb, she was smiling. "The dreams are B's gig, not mine. Just that sense you get, you know? When you feel like-"

"-somebody's watching you," Wesley finished quietly. In the orb, a strange expression crossed Faith face, and her free hand curled beneath the hollow of her neck, scratching lightly. 

"Yeah. Listen, hey, any of you guys get a hankering for grits or some shit, you should head in my direction. I gotcha covered."

Wesley blinked at the change in direction. "Faith, is everything all right?"

There was another short silence. "Yeah. Hey. Just thinkin', have you heard anything about the new Watcher's Council? I mean, are they up and sputtering yet?"

"I believe so. Mr. Giles has things well in hand, and I understand that Willow has had a great deal to do with it."

Faith rolled her eyes. "That figures. Great white witch saves the world, one crusty English guy at a time." She paused, and grinned wickedly. "No offence."

The ghost of a smile appeared on Wesley's lips. "None taken."

"So listen," Faith said, suddenly sitting up, her voice business-like. "You call me if you hear anything about the Council needing a hand, okay? Could do with the cash."

Wesley's jaw tightened.  "Faith-"

"How's Team Angel?" she breezed on. "Cordy awake yet?"

With a start, Wesley realised that he had not thought about Cordelia for several days. "No. No change."

"That bites. And the rest of you? Still flirtin' with the big stinky evil?"

"We do our best," Wesley said, eyeing the room around him. "There's a case to be made for us helping more than we harm, I believe. We are, uh, a little understaffed, though, if you-"

"Whatever floats your boat, Wes." In the orb, Faith's expression had darkened, and Wesley immediately understood. He had given her away, revealed his understanding. And she didn't like it. "So, yeah," she continued, "just checking in. Say hey to the big guy for me. All three of them, actually. And the tiny Texan, too."

Wesley nodded, before remembering that he was the only one with the unfair advantage of vision. "I will."

Her voice was deeper. "Take care."

She hung up before he could respond. 

Wesley put the phone down, and quickly went back to his seat in front of the orb. Faith was staring at the wall of her motel room, an unreadable expression on her face. 

He continued to watch. He continued to remain closeted in his rear office, continued to let his duties lapse, and continued to lie to himself about why he was doing so. 

It was the first morning of the second week, a day on which Faith was chatting with the proprietor of her local grocer, when her aura turned blood-red. 

+ + +

"Translate," Wesley demanded. "Tell me. Why?"

Eve tucked her feet up underneath her, the orb glowing crimson between them. "Taking it a little personally, aren't you, Wes?"

"I didn't ask to be deconstructed. I asked for a reading. Give it, or get out and I'll find somebody who will."

"Yeesh," Eve trilled, wiggling her fingers. "Somebody needs less caffeine."

Wesley ignored her and turned to the silent Gij shaman at his side. "You understand me, yes?"

The figure nodded slowly. 

Wesley thrust a notebook in its direction. "Then write it down. Tell me what's going to happen to her."

The shaman shook his head, and Eve sighed. "They don't write, genius. They never needed to. They're telepathic, remember? Everything they need exists in people's minds already." She settled back into her chair. "Now, keep your ruffled British knickers on, and let me get to it."

The shaman bent to her, and although Wesley concentrated as hard as he could, he heard nothing.

"It's some kind of deal gone wrong," Eve said slowly. "Your girl needs cash. So she takes a courier job from the Italian guy."

Wesley pointed at the orb, where the image of Faith and the grocer was frozen in time, her hand raised in amusement and his in some sort of grandiose gesture. "Him?"

"Yeah. So she delivers some stuff for him that turns out not to be what she's told it is."

"What?"

A vague look of distaste crossed Eve's face. "Black market organs. But not of the happy surgery kind – of the used-in-dark-ritual-human-sacrifice kind."

Wesley felt his stomach turn. Those organs were generally taken from live children under the age of two. "Does she find out?"

"She finds out."

Wesley swallowed. "And?"

Eve looked him in the eye. "There's a kickass fight, in which she gets pounded on like no tomorrow. And then she kills the demon messenger."

"I don't understand," Wesley said. "He's a demon. Why does his death change her fate?"

Eve looked to the shaman, who blinked impassively. "He's not the reason," Eve said slowly. "He's the catalyst."

Wesley looked to the orb again. The girl frozen there was smiling. So very, incredibly young. "Catalyst for what?"

"Sure you want to hear this?"

"Yes."

"Why are you interested in this girl, anyway?"

Wesley lifted his head. "I failed her once. I … owe her. We all do."

Eve raised her eyebrows. "Okay," she said lightly. "So apparently she goes after the grocer. Things get out of hand, and she accidentally kills his wife as well. The wife who had, you understand, no idea what her husband's extra-curricular activities involved. She thinks their extra money comes from a charter boat he told her they own."

Wesley leant forward. "When? When does this happen?"

Eve listened silently for a moment. "Tonight," she said finally. "About five hours from now."

Wesley shot to his feet, a ripple of nausea running through him. He grasped the shaman by the shoulders. "Where?" he demanded hotly. "WHERE?"

"Alley on the corner of 49th and Le Guirre," Eve replied, her composure a little shaken. "If you wanna help her, stop the fight. The first one, the messenger. After that, there's no going back."

Wesley was gone, tie dangling loosely, his jacket left in a crumpled heap on the floor.

+ + +

The alley stank. It reeked, to be more precise, of urine, of faeces, of all the dark things that people do to each other when nobody's watching. 

"What's this shit?" Faith hissed darkly, brandishing the paltry pile of notes she had been handed. 

The Bracg demon grinned lopsidedly at her, jowls drooping to either side of his shoulders. "Doncha recognise President Jackson? Should do, there's five of him there."

"And there's supposed to be ten more," Faith said, striding forward. "Cough it up, dough-boy."

The demon snorted. "You got your wires crossed somewheres. Hunnert for the delivery, two hunnert for pickup and storage. Don't see you pickin' nothin' up. Leastways not for me."

Faith moved to within a foot of him. "Be picking _you_ up in a minute, ugly, and not in the good way. I was told three hundred and I'm not leaving without it."

"Whatcha gonna do about it, honey?" the Bracg drawled in amusement. "I ain't carryin' any more cash. Plus, reckon I got about four hunnert pounds on you."

"Dammit!" Faith yelled, her fist smacking the demon square in the chest. "I knew it. Fucking _knew_ I'd get shafted!" She turned slowly, eyeing the short stack of boxes she had lugged halfway across town, and a crazy grin surfaced. "You're not taking this stuff anywhere, friend. Come back with three hundred and we'll see what the what is."

The demon drew himself up to his full, seven-foot height. "Gonna try to make that happen, are ya?"

Faith's smile widened. "Oh, yeah. And just as some incentive…"

She whirled, her foot lashing out, and the top box splintered into a thousand pieces. The demon lunged forward, giant hands splayed out, but he was too late. Faith pushed him aside and knelt, coming up with her hands full of plastic packets. 

"What the fuck is this?" she whispered, her voice cracking. She held up a bag that glistened with crimson. "Liver. Subject alive when removed. Age 1.4 years." It fell from her fingers and she hefted another, her pupils darkening with rage. "Pancreas. Subject alive when … 2.1 years…" 

There was a soft patter as the remaining bags dropped to the ground, Faith's suddenly nerveless fingers letting go of their own accord. She shifted in her crouch, swivelling to face the Bracg. "What the fuck is this?" she repeated. Softly. Dangerously. 

The Bracg held up his spade-like hands. "Jus' a courier, sweet thing. Don't go lookin' at me, 'kay?"

"I _am_ looking at you, asshole," she growled, on her feet in a blur of muscle and grace. "I'm very _definitely_ looking at you."

The demon blinked. "I-"

Faith started forward, fists clenched. "Start running, shitbrick. Cause when I get to you, you're a smear."

The Bracg shifted its weight, a slow grin appearing. "Bwa!" it brayed, spittle flying from its oversized lips. "That's about the damn near funniest thing I heard in years, titchy. You're gonna-"

He was silenced by the crunching of his teeth as they met the back of his throat. Choking, he staggered backwards. Faith kept advancing, unshed tears making her eyes sparkle bitterly in the low light. 

"I got _out_ of this shit!" she screamed furiously, foot burying itself in the Bracg's midsection. "I was fucking _clear_ of it!" She grasped an overhead fire-escape and swung herself upwards, both feet connecting with a solid thud of steel-caps to skull. 

But this time the Bracg didn't falter. With a roar, his face split apart to reveal a chunky row of bleeding, shark-like teeth. His fists sprouted a black, wicked-looking bloom of thorns. "Oh, sister, you going _down_," it slurred through the mush that was its jaw.

And the fight began in earnest. 

When Wesley rounded the corner, Faith was on the ground. One trunk-like hand was holding her down, and the other was slamming repeatedly into her face.  Wes didn't pause for thought. He extended one of his arms and a rapier-like, razor sharp piece of metal shot from his sleeve. Whirling, Wesley brought it down into a vicious circular spin, feeling the kickback shudder all the way up his shoulder. 

The Bracg's head bounced three times before it came to rest beside a dumpster.

Wesley knelt, then. Faith was choking slightly, her own blood running down into her throat. "What'd ya do that for?" she slurred, eyes bruised almost closed. "Another sec I woulda had him."

"I've no doubt," Wesley replied gently, smoothing her tangled hair away from her face. 

Her eyes brightened, creasing slightly at the corners. It was as close to a smile as she could come through her broken mouth. "Wes."

Wesley lifted her gently to her feet, steadying her with an arm around her shoulders. "Faith," he said gravely. 

She spat blood, a forced chuckle rising from her throat. "See? Brits know how to say hello."

Without thinking too much about what he was doing, Wesley leant forward and kissed her forehead. "Ready to come home now?" he asked. 

Faith sucked in a breath. "I guess maybe yeah," she managed quietly.

Wesley began walking. 

+ + +

In the darkness of Wesley's rear office, Eve stifled a grin. She looked into the nothingness above her. "We got him," she called quietly, and began to laugh.

The two dark figures were shuffling towards the street, leaning upon each other. Faith's aura was a pale, misty blue. And Wesley's was the cloying crimson of arterial blood.

**END**


End file.
